The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Tulbaghia plant botanically known as Tulbaghia hybrid and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name ‘Ashanti’.
The new cultivar originated in a controlled breeding program in Pretoria, South Africa during the summer of 1999. The objective of the breeding program was the development of Tulbaghia cultivars that have abundant flowers with attractive coloration and thinner foliage.
The new interspecific Tulbaghia cultivar is the result of cross-pollination. The female (seed) parent of the new cultivar is a Tulbaghia violacea breeding selection, not coded, not patented, characterized by its dark purple-colored flowers, medium green to blue-green colored foliage, and vigorous, upright-mounding growth habit. The male (pollen) parent of the new cultivar is a Tulbaghia cominsii breeding selection, not coded, not patented, characterized by its light pink-colored flowers, medium green to blue-green colored foliage, and moderately vigorous, upright-mounding growth habit. The new cultivar was discovered and selected as a single flowering plant within the progeny of the above stated cross-pollination during the summer of 2001 in a controlled environment in Pretoria, South Africa.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by division since the summer of 2002 in Pretoria, South Africa and Valley Center, Calif. has demonstrated that the new cultivar reproduces true to type with all of the characteristics, as herein described, firmly fixed and retained through successive generations of such asexual propagation.